Kids should not touch PCs

A top shrink has called for a ban on children under the age of nine from using computers because the technology is scrambling damaging their brains. Talking to a conference of childcare specialists in the UK, psychologist and author Dr Aric Sigman said technology affected children's attentions spans and was harmful to their under-developed brains.

Rules that claimed that kids as young as 22 months could play with PCs was "subverting the development of children's cognitive skills" Sigman told AP. He said that there was evidence to show that introducing information and communication technology (ICT) in the early years actually subverts the very skills that government ministers said they want children to develop.

Introducing kids to computers too early means that we are seeing kids who do not read and find it difficult to pay attention to the teacher, or to communicate, he claimed.

Primary schoolchildren in the UK have at least one ICT lesson a week and computer use is widespread. Sigman said that even though screen technology can assist learning, children should be introduced later.